


To Know You

by CurseUndone



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (sort of), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Cuddles, Domestic Fluff, M/M, they're just.....soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24448738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurseUndone/pseuds/CurseUndone
Summary: Sometime after they move to the South Downs together, Crowley's true form begins to peek through his corporation.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58
Collections: Adversarial Anniversary Celebration





	To Know You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChubbyHornedEquine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChubbyHornedEquine/gifts).



> AGGHH, happy to be in this little event and happy especially to give this gift to my good buddy, Jace!! Hope you like it, my friend.
> 
> And of course, thank you to Stu for betaing!

“Angel.”

It’s a soft sound, spoken into quiet air. Crowley is in the doorway to the sitting room, Aziraphale sitting in his favorite armchair that he’d brought from London. There is no light but the fire burning, casting everything outside its reach into flickering, soft shadows.

Aziraphale breathes in at the word like he’s swallowed something warm. “My love,” he says back.

Rather than come closer, Crowley stays in the doorway. Ready to slither back into the dark.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?”

Crowley shakes his head. “No. I, erm…” He slips forward in smooth, sinuous steps – to the untrained eye, out of joint, but Aziraphale sees the elegance in it. Crowley climbs onto his lap, his back against one armrest and his legs stuck out over the other. Less elegant but no less dear. Aziraphale’s arms settle around him easily, one laid on his waist and the other pressed against his back where the armrest ends.

Aziraphale half-expects Crowley to remain silent. When some melancholy took him, he usually snuggled into Aziraphale’s side or laid his head on Aziraphale’s lap, quiet. But he sticks out his arm, wrist up. “Look.”

Aziraphale’s right hand drifts up to gently hold Crowley’s wrist so he can tilt it to catch the light better. On Crowley’s arm there are half a dozen smooth black scales, each about the size of a thumbnail. Between each of them is a bare sliver of skin, human, pale rather than grey. “That’s a lovely contrast. Were you attempting to transform?”

“No. It just…happened. Dunno why.”

“How peculiar.” His hand skates down from Crowley’s wrist to hover just below where the scales appeared. “May I?” At Crowley’s nod, he sweeps his thumb over them and hums thoughtfully.

“It’s me,” Crowley confesses, a little too loud for the quiet of the room. “The scales, I mean. They’re mine. _Mine_ mine.”

Aziraphale looks up to his face, where Crowley is worrying at his lip, staring at the scales. “Your true form?”

Crowley nods.

“Your…” He sucks in a soft, awed breath. “I’m honored.” Aziraphale runs his thumb over them again, lingering, applying a soft pressure, savoring the warmth that hides under the coolness of them. It is breathtaking to touch a fraction of him; aside from his wings, Aziraphale had never seen any part of his true form, a byproduct of inhabiting a human corporation. It wasn’t so much a set of blinders as it was a different perspective. Time, metaphysical matter, even the mundanities of day-to-day earthly life were different through the eyes (so to speak) of a purely celestial being. But here is this small piece of Crowley beneath his fingers, so easy to touch. “Can you conceal them again?”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t. “They don’t want to though.”

“Nothing unpleasant?”

“ _Angel_.”

“Oh, let me fuss.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asks, this time just to be a bastard.

“Yes, I’m very sure,” Crowley huffs, making a face at him.

“Good.” He lifts Crowley’s arm to kiss the inside of his wrist, and then kisses the patch of scales. “Very, very good.”

He smiles at Crowley’s blush. “Time for bed, my dear?” he asks.

Crowley collapses back dramatically, pretending to swoon. “Carry me?”

“Ah, of course. You made the entire arduous journey from the bedroom to the sitting room on your own. How could you ever summon the energy to travel back?”

Crowley laughs in delight as Aziraphale stands, lifting him with no effort, and they retire together for the night.

Over the next few weeks, it continued to happen. After an evening of sipping cocoa (together; Crowley had finally admitted to having a sweet tooth) and reminiscing, another patch of scales appeared on his skin. One morning, he woke up with a proper set of fangs. In the garden, he absentmindedly sprouted claws during his weeding. It never happened when they were out together, having a walk or shopping. It was most likely in those liminal spaces between asleep and awake, the evenings when the air was thick with sleep or the mornings when everything was brightening.

Each time, Crowley turned inward, hesitant and uncertain, but Aziraphale poured out his affection in kisses and praise until Crowley smiled back at him with the same delight. It was Crowley, after all, and how could Aziraphale do anything but love him? Aziraphale kissed his scales and curled his tongue around his fangs and rubbed at his shoulderblades just above where wings manifested.

On this particular evening, they sit on the sofa together, Aziraphale’s head in Crowley’s lap, looking up at him as the demon scrolls idly through his phone, his other hand resting on Aziraphale’s chest. He watches as the scales shiver into existence on Crowley’s skin, washing up the side of his neck onto his cheek. Crowley reaches up a hand, two fingers clawed, to scratch the edge of it absentmindedly, not even noticing it has happened at all. The bright reflection of his phone in his eyes highlights the yellow of his eyes. Aziraphale likes lying here with nothing to do but gaze adoringly up at his love. Romance books could be embarrassingly inaccurate, but they certainly captured the appeal of such actions. It was important every once in a while to remember what it was like to see someone for the first time, while keeping the experience of knowing them for all the time after that. Crowley isn’t hard to appreciate, he is so artful in his angles.

Aziraphale can’t resist; he strokes a hand up Crowley’s neck, following the path of the scales. Crowley’s eyes dart over, and he puts his phone aside with a smirk that melts at the edges. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“Which one, my darling?”

“The terribly besotted one you have.”

“Oh, I’m sure I look like that all the time.” In the moment, he means it whole-heartedly – they might spend an entire evening together fawning over each other or simply sitting together like this, and it can be overwhelming to remember how lucky he is.

“Well, sometimes you look very cross with me,” Crowley says with a pout.

Aziraphale’s hand settles on his shoulder, thumb resting at the edge of where the scales begin. “Well, _sometimes_ you rearrange the entire the house when I take a trip to London.”

“Always having the same old décor is b _or_ ing.”

“It is cosy,” Aziraphale corrects, making a brief effort to look haughty, which twists back into a smile when Crowley laughs.

“Whatever you say, dove.”

They’re quiet again. Aziraphale returns his hands to rest clasped together on his stomach, and Crowley loosely grips the front of his shirt. With his bright eyes and claws and scales he should have been intimidating, or at the very least exotic, but it was all the same familiar style, striking in that same old stunning way. A new facet of his beauty unveiled, because he trusts Aziraphale so deeply, even with this.

“I do feel safe with you. The safest I’ve ever felt,” Aziraphale murmurs. “I hope you know that.”

“Of course I do,” Crowley said. “Demons are just more wobbly is all.”

“Are they now?”

“Metaphysics 101, Aziraphale.”

The vague worry in Aziraphale’s chest settles. The quip isn’t the sarcastic sort Crowley dishes out when insecure, but his at-ease teasing. “Must have skipped that lesson.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

They sit in another quiet moment. Aziraphale is almost tempted to try for a rare nap.

Crowley opens his mouth, hesitates. “We could…” His mouth twists like he’s holding something sharp on his tongue. Something in it tells Aziraphale that the tone has shifted to a proper serious discussion, and he sits up, which serves to fumble Crowley’s words further. Aziraphale waits until he spits it out. “We’re not tied to our bodies, is what I mean. The wiring’s tricky, but we could…”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale trails off, shocked into wordlessness at the suggestion.

“I just thought—”

Aziraphale curses himself as Crowley turns his eyes away, jaw clenching. Still, his true form remained visible, and Aziraphale feels heady in the trust there. Defensive, but not closed off. “No, no, I apologize, my dear, I merely…” Crowley’s eyes dart back to him, so Aziraphale gives himself the time to gather his thoughts together. “We don’t need to prove ourselves anymore. You don’t need to unveil every piece of yourself to show me that you love me. I don’t need to see your heart to know it. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Crowley says, voice thick and quiet. After another moment, a few tears fall.

After an awkward moment, Aziraphale asks, “Er, is this a good cry?”

Crowley gives a watery chuckle. “Yeah, angel.”

“Thank goodness.” He slides an arm around Crowley’s shoulders, tugging him closer, and Crowley happily tucks his head under Aziraphale’s chin. “I could go on, if you wish.”

“Hopeless romantic.” Crowley tries to scoff but it comes out far too fond for that.

“It’s a good thing they sent two of those out as field agents.” Aziraphale kisses the top of his head. “Humans talk of ‘innermost souls’ and such, but really I think they are at their most romantic when they speak of sights and smells, memories. Love isn’t contained in one person; it’s connective. It is the memories, the sensations. I’ve had six thousand memories of you. Six thousand years to build the strongest, most vibrant love this world has seen. It’s a human sort of love, but that only makes it _more_ special. Here we are, in the house we found together, deciding to stay with each other every day. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“I love you, too,” Crowley repeats, still crying but his voice lighter now. “I think I punctured your shirt.”

“Oh, good lord!” Aziraphale peers around Crowley’s head and, sure enough, there are two holes where claws have gouged through the fabric. “Well, at least it isn’t a favorite.”

“Every one of your shirts is a favorite.” Crowley presses his palm over the ripped fabric, and when he pulls away the tears are mended. “See? Never happened.”

“Menace.”

Aziraphale laces his fingers with Crowley’s, and they continue their quiet life.


End file.
